Video Out of Control (In a Good Way) in the U.K.

ComScore's Video Metric Service released data indicating that the total number of videos viewed online in the U.K. in April 2009 grew 47 percent versus year ago to 4.7 billion videos.

The report also found that 21.8 million U.K. Internet users viewed a total of 971 million online display ads on multimedia sites during the month, based on data from comScore Ad Metrix, a recently introduced service in the U.K. providing competitive intelligence on online display advertising.

So what are the top U.K. online video properties based on videos viewed? YouTube of course dominated, and experienced a 58% growth in views. Other pure play properties include Megavideo.com, dailymotion.com and Facebook.com.

"With nearly five billion videos viewed in the U.K. in April, online video is a powerful and growing vehicle for online advertising placement,” said Mike Read, SVP and managing director, comScore Europe. “The online video market currently relies heavily on display ads for monetization, and in the coming months and years we can expect that video ads will play an even more prominent role. Despite the market’s overwhelming size and audience at this phase of the growth curve, it is also clear that we’re still in the early stages of advertising optimization and effectiveness in this increasingly important entertainment channel.”